Beatrice Bartlay, owner of specialist staffing agency 2B Interface, has welcomed the new measures with open arms.

“Late payments is one of the biggest issues confronting small businesses today. Small businesses are fragile and rely immensely on their cash flow to support operations and growth. If a business does not pay their supplier on time, it has a critical impact on that enterprise, which essentially ends up acting as a paymaster and banker, chasing for any payments owed to them,” stated Bartlay.

“The news that the government will be introducing a small business conciliation service, along with the new Bill, is a monumental move in the right direction. It will give small businesses the much-needed backing when struggling with the payment process and will help mitigate the risk of small businesses losing that much needed financial support,” she said.

Beatrice concluded, “Over the past few years, the lack of legislative support to ensure organisations pay on time has meant that small businesses have been threatened with the prospect of losing money and struggling to deal with late payments. To Britain’s small businesses, a bill paid can mean the difference between staying above water, or sinking, and I am confident that the Enterprise Bill will give SMEs that much needed support to truly make Britain’s & lsquo;engine room’ of SMEs thrive and grow.”